iPhone is not my Oyster 3G

Apple's iConic handsets started to fly off the shelves.
They do looks beautiful, provided you keep your gloves on. They have Apple fingerprints all over, but a rather black, Korean touch as well. They will give AT&T a boost, but on a 2G network and with a Blackberrish herd of servers to support the service. Jobs love Gates, but the iPhone uses the same H.264 video format as YouTube, and is meant to give Safari a boost in the nascent mobile browsing market*... are Steve and Bill considering keeping their marriage secret for another ten years ?

ip.access also offers good looking devices ; their Oyster 3G femtocells even won a GSMA's Global Mobile Award earlier this year. But Frost & Sullivan awarded IPWireless with a Technology of the Year label last march, and two months later NextWave Wireless (better known for PacketVideo and WiMAX) completed the acquisition of the TD-CDMA - TDtv champion...

What else ? 3 items picked (almost) randomly :

. The EC and Viviane Reding keep pushing DVB-H. Sorry, no spectrum. And no cash back for those insane 3G auctions either.

. Saudi Telecom, a laggard in booming Middle East, eventually joins the investing frenzy. Malaysia's Maxis is their first foreign target ever. What a coincidence... after islamic banking, there could actually be a big market for islamic telecom... Infrastructure Shariah anyone ?

. Wells Fargo & Company and Visa USA pursue their NFC mobile banking trials. After Phase I (this spring : employees, Wells Fargo Customer Experience Research Lab) and before Phase II (this summer : employees, Visa payWave enabled merchants), WFC released their new CEO Mobile services (that's Commercial Electronic Office). Real customers - 300-500 Wells Fargo Visa cardholders - won't be involved before Phase III (this autumn ?). After that, you should be hearing about some operator... beyond Visa, that is.


*Safari's web browser usage share is well below 5%, but has been significantly improving lately.

TDTV and femtosales

TDTV seems to have gained a few steps since last year*. Vodafone, 3UK, O2 / Telefonica and Orange have been trying IPWireless's mobile TV solution in Bristol, and unlike for DVB-H, spectrum is available in many countries.
But IPW are facing an impressive bunch of haves and have-mores from Europe (Nokia / DVB-H), the US (Qualcomm / MediaFLO) or Asia (Korea Inc / DMB). Plus lobbying has never been their main asset. Yet Voda, 3, Telefonica and Orange do mean something in Europe. Especially when you need to speed up the delivery of handsets.
I remember the first 3G+ femtocells I ever saw working were IPWireless's UMTS-TDD dongles...
To be not seamlessly continued...

* see "TDtv and IP fews" (20060213)

TDtv and IP fews

When I write "IPmobile have remained relatively silent" (after getting a 3G license in Japan)*, I'm only talking about the 3Greenfield operator.
Because mother company IPWireless has been fairly active lately.
In 2006 alone : Sprint Nextel injected another $10M in the venture, the CEO resigned, new & old faces joined the board, and IPW announced TDtv trials for H1 2006, not to mention partnerships with MobiTV and Vidiator.
Based on MBMS (Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Standard) and, unsurprisingly enough, UMTS-TD-CDMA, this mobile TV solution will naturally be exhibited in Barcelona this week and - a little bit later - used by IPmobile in Japan. IPW's 3G-3GTV combo matches Qualcomm's cdma2000-MediaFLO package : with a slightly smaller customer base to start with, but also with the 3GSM label.
As the GSM family gathers near La Sagrada Familia, faces look much less grim than a couple of years ago. This mob used to milk the neighborhood without pain but suddenly got challenged by competitors and incorruptible regulators. The association reorganized itself in order to cope with both and now looks stronger than ever, able to lead in a world of competition and diversity, eager to market to third parties a consumer base bigger than China.


* see "J:COM's quadruple play : within the fence" (20060210)